Though Sofia Vergara’s blonde hair had already darkened to “a warm caramel color” at the time of her Terry Richardson–shot Harper’s Bazaar cover, she is nonetheless borderline unrecognizable on the cover. In the accompanying article, however, she is the charming and unabashedly luxury-loving Sofia we know. Discussing her five Hermès Birkin bags, she offers a powerful relativistic rationalization for overspending on designer purses:
I tell [my son] Manolo, ‘If I don’t have enough money for your college this month, you have to sell the Birkins.’ My business manager is very traditional, Jewish guy. Every time I buy one of those, he calls me and says, ‘Sofia, it’s Craig. Did you buy this, or is it a fraud?’ I’m like, ‘Craig, listen … what would you prefer? Me popping champagne bottles and doing drugs and wasting money or buying bags? These are valuable. These, Manolo can sell!’”
In an accompanying behind-the-scenes video, Vergara eats “the world’s most expensive sundae,” a $1,000 heap of ice cream and edible gold. Harper’s Bazaar executive editor Laura Brown summons it by clapping her hands:
Writer Kimberly Cutter describes Vergara’s “endless amusement” at the arrival of her “fifteen minutes”: “Ask what’s her favorite thing about Modern Family and she says, ‘I would be lying to you if I didn’t say the success of it. For me, it has allowed me to do the things I always wanted — my endorsements.’”